As a teenager, he enrolled at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated first in his class from West Point in 1986[6] and then served as a cavalry officer patrolling the Iron Curtain before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He also served with the 2nd Squadron, 7th Cavalry in the Fourth Infantry Division. He served his last tour in the Gulf War.

Pompeo founded Thayer Aerospace and Private Security.[10] In 2006 he sold his interest in Thayer (which was renamed Nex-Tech Aerospace). He became the President of Sentry International, an oilfield equipment company.[11]

In the 2010 Kansas Republican primary for the 4th District Congressional seat, Pompeo defeated State SenatorJean Schodorf (who received 24%), Wichita businessman Wink Hartman (who received 23%), and small business owner Jim Anderson (who received 13%). State Senator Dick Kelsey also ran for the nomination, but ended his campaign before the August primary and endorsed Pompeo.[12][13][14] Late in the primary, Schodorf began to surge, prompting two outside groups—Americans for Prosperity and Common Sense Issues, an Ohio-based political group—to enter the race, spending tens of thousands of dollars in the final campaign days to attack Schodorf and support Pompeo.[15]

The bill placed a 12-month deadline on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, requiring it to approve or reject any proposal for a natural gas pipeline within that timeframe.[26] The bill passed the House along party lines but not voted on in the Senate.[27]

Pompeo rejects many concepts about global warming.[28] In 2013, he said, "There are scientists who think lots of different things about climate change. There's some who think we're warming, there's some who think we’re cooling, there's some who think that the last 16 years have shown a pretty stable climate environment."[28]

Pompeo opposes requiring food suppliers to label food made with genetically modified organisms, and to that end in April 2014 introduced the "Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act" to block states from requiring mandatory GMO food labeling.[36]

Pompeo supported the U.S. federal government shutdown of 2013, blaming President Obama while acknowledging that the Republican Party could take a hit from the shutdown. He stated that he believed the shutdown was necessary to avoid a predicted "American financial collapse 10 years from now."[37]

In January 2014, Pompeo voted against a two-year budget deal drafted by Paul Ryan that would avert any government shutdown until 2015 and cut deficits by $23 billion.[38]

Pompeo has been critical of President Obama, whom he repeatedly alleged was indecisive and not appropriately respectful of military leaders such as General McChrystal, who was forced to submit his resignation for having made negative comments about the president to Rolling Stone magazine. He accused the president of "unforgivably fail[ing] to provide the total commitment of our national means to our servicemen in the field."[39]

Pompeo speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C.

Pompeo supports the National Security Agency's surveillance programs, characterizing the agency's efforts as "good and important work."[40] In March 2014, Pompeo denounced NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's inclusion in the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, and called for Snowden's invitation to speak via telecast at the annual Texas event be withdrawn, lest it encourage "lawless behavior" among attendees.[41] In February 2016, Pompeo said Snowden "should be brought back from Russia and given due process, and I think the proper outcome would be that he would be given a death sentence."[42]

Pompeo has advocated for rolling back post-Snowden surveillance reforms, saying "Congress should pass a law re-establishing collection of all metadata, and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database. Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed. That includes Presidential Policy Directive-28, which bestows privacy rights on foreigners and imposes burdensome requirements to justify data collection."[43]

On July 21, 2015, Pompeo and Senator Tom Cotton alleged the existence of secret side agreements between Iran and the IAEA on procedures for inspection and verification of Iran's nuclear activities under the Iran nuclear deal. The Obama administration denied any clandestine or secret actions.[44][45][46]

Administration officials acknowledge the existence of agreements between Iran and the IAEA governing the inspection of sensitive military sites, but deny the characterization that they are “secret side deals,” saying instead that they are standard practice in crafting arms-control pacts and that the Administration had provided the information on them that was at its disposal to Congress.[45]

In a 2013 speech on the House floor, Pompeo said Muslim leaders who fail to denounce acts of terrorism done in the name of Islam are "potentially complicit" in the attacks.[47] The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on Pompeo to revise his remarks, calling them "false and irresponsible".[48]

Pompeo opposes closing Guantánamo Bay detention camp.[49] After a 2013 visit to the prison, Pompeo said, of the prisoners who were on hunger strike, "It looked to me like a lot of them had put on weight."[50]

Pompeo has criticized the Obama administration's decision to end the CIA's secret prisons (so-called "black sites"), and the administration's requirement that all interrogators adhere to anti-torture laws.[51]